Dunwoody's holiday season comes from a handful of community groups, each running one event, and most of those events sit on the same stretch of Chamblee Dunwoody Road. The Dunwoody Homeowners Association and the Dunwoody Preservation Trust light the first tree. Create Dunwoody and the Dunwoody Village Merchant Alliance light the second a week later. Mitzvah House lights a menorah in the Village in December. The city's lights at Brook Run cover the rest of the month. The one piece neighbors make with their own hands, the lanterns for the Village parade, gets built two weeks before the parade at two other community events.
Get the order right and you can walk through all of it, one event leading into the next.
The first tree goes up at the farm on November 15
Light Up Dunwoody is on Sunday, November 15, from 2 to 6 p.m. at Donaldson-Bannister Farm, 4831 Chamblee Dunwoody Road. The Dunwoody Homeowners Association and the Dunwoody Preservation Trust present it together, and it has opened the holiday season here since 1996. The association puts attendance at about 2,500 people a year.
The organizers describe the draw plainly:
"Of course, Santa and his live reindeer are always the stars of the show!"
Doors open at 2 p.m. with DJ music and photos with Santa and the reindeer. The city's event listing adds performances by local musicians and dancers and a craft corner from the Spruill Center for the Arts. Economos Event Production is the production partner. The afternoon ends with the tree and menorah lighting just after sunset. Discover Dunwoody lists the festival as free and open to all.
The farm event lights both a tree and a menorah, and that pairing comes back in December in the Village. The Preservation Trust's involvement also explains the setting. The season opens at one of Dunwoody's oldest homes, a short drive south of the shopping centers where the rest of it happens.
The second tree needs lanterns, and lanterns need a workshop
A week after Light Up Dunwoody, the Dunwoody Village Holiday Celebration and Lantern Parade fills the Greater Dunwoody Village on Sunday, November 22, from 3 to 6:30 p.m. Admission is free. Discover Dunwoody lists the event at 5521 Chamblee Dunwoody Road and calls it the Sunday before Thanksgiving.
What makes this one different is that people bring the lanterns themselves. Create Dunwoody holds two lantern workshops in early November, each one attached to another community event already on the calendar:
- Saturday, November 7, at Diwali in Dunwoody. Create Dunwoody lists the lantern workshop from 5 to 7:45 p.m.
- Sunday, November 8, at the Shops of Dunwoody Farmers Market. The workshop runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- At home, on your own schedule. Create Dunwoody says lantern kits will be available at Village Ace Hardware.
Admission to the November 22 celebration and its activities is free. The lantern workshops are optional and cost extra.
So the parade really starts on November 7, at a festival with its own history, and continues the next morning at the farmers market.
Diwali in Dunwoody hands off the first batch
Create Dunwoody organizes Diwali in Dunwoody, which this year falls on Saturday, November 7, at the Dunwoody Nature Center, 5343 Roberts Drive. The event page lists it from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The listings give slightly different times for the performances and the workshop, so check Create Dunwoody's site before you go. The program covers the Festival of Lights with live dance and theatrical performances, hands-on rangoli art and chai. Stage Door Theatre is named as the production partner.
The festival is still young. 11Alive covered it as Dunwoody's first Diwali festival, and Rough Draft Atlanta called the 2024 event the second annual celebration. In 2025 it ran in mid-October. This year it lands in November, which puts it right where the lantern-making starts. A festival of lights is where Dunwoody's paper lanterns begin.
The farmers market takes the morning shift
The next morning, the workshop moves to the Shops of Dunwoody Farmers Market, hosted by SPS Productions. The market runs Sundays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Shops of Dunwoody, 5468 Chamblee Dunwoody Road. Its schedule lists every Sunday from November 1 through December 27, and the market continues into January.
That makes the market the steady piece of the season. The farm event, the Village parade and the menorah lighting each happen once. The market comes back every Sunday morning for the whole stretch, a few doors down Chamblee Dunwoody Road from the Village where the lanterns will be carried.
How the November 22 afternoon is built
Create Dunwoody's posted schedule runs to the minute.
- 3:00 p.m. The Kids Market opens. Discover Dunwoody says it features more than 35 young entrepreneurs.
- 4:00 to 5:50 p.m. Opening comments, then performances on the main stage by James Violin Studio Group, Stayin' Alive Crew, Expressions in Motion Dance, North Georgia School of Ballet, Dunwoody Elementary singers, Georgia Dance Force, The Collective Dance Project and the Dunwoody High School Choir, with breaks to visit the activities.
- 5:25 p.m. Parade judging and lineup behind the Courtyard Funwoody screen.
- 5:45 p.m. The Lantern Parade.
- 6:00 p.m. The Lantern and Tree Award Ceremony.
- 6:15 p.m. Tree lighting in the courtyard with Santa.
New this year, according to Discover Dunwoody, are a mobile petting zoo and train rides. Returning features include a classic and exotic car display, ornament decorating, live llamas, and hot chocolate and s'mores.
The lineup draws heavily on Dunwoody's own schools and studios. The parade gets judged, and the awards come before the tree lighting, so the lanterns built at Diwali and the farmers market have their moment just before the courtyard tree goes up.
December continues in the Village and at Brook Run
After Thanksgiving, the season shifts from one-day festivals to longer runs, and several of the same organizations come back.
Spruill Gallery's Holiday Art Fair runs November 13 through December 23, with handmade gifts and art by Georgia artists and artisans. Spruill's fair page has the details. The same arts center runs the craft corner at Light Up Dunwoody.
Stage Door Theatre stages the holiday musical The Winter Wonderettes by Roger Bean from December 5 through 20. The season page describes a holiday party at Harper's Hardware where Santa goes missing. This is the same company that partners on Diwali in Dunwoody.
Mitzvah House lists its fifth annual community menorah lighting at Dunwoody Village, at The Bar(n), on December 10 from 5 to 7 p.m. Its events page carries the listing. That brings a second menorah lighting to the season, this one back in the Village where the lantern parade passed three weeks earlier.
Brook Run Park Holiday Lights is the city's piece. The city's Holiday Lights page describes it as a free December display that typically runs through December 31. In a July 13, 2026 memo, Parks and Recreation Director Rachel Waldron asked the City Council to approve the 2026 display contract with Chitwood Studios, which has designed and installed the lights since 2022. The schedule attached to the proposal shows the display open December 1 through 31. The city has not yet announced an opening night for this year, so check the city page before planning around one.
The season on one page
- Nov. 7, Saturday: Diwali in Dunwoody and the first lantern workshop, Dunwoody Nature Center
- Nov. 8, Sunday: Second lantern workshop, Shops of Dunwoody Farmers Market
- Nov. 13 to Dec. 23: Spruill Gallery Holiday Art Fair
- Nov. 15, Sunday: Light Up Dunwoody, Donaldson-Bannister Farm, 2 to 6 p.m.
- Nov. 22, Sunday: Village Holiday Celebration and Lantern Parade, 3 to 6:30 p.m.
- Dec. 5 to 20: The Winter Wonderettes, Stage Door Theatre
- Dec. 10: Community menorah lighting, The Bar(n) at Dunwoody Village, 5 to 7 p.m.
- December: Brook Run Park Holiday Lights, with the 2026 opening date still to be announced
To carry a lantern on November 22, go to a workshop on November 7 or 8, or watch Village Ace Hardware for the kits Create Dunwoody says are coming soon. Lineup starts at 5:25 behind the Courtyard Funwoody screen.
Neil spends his working life thinking about how presentation and community shape the places people call home, and Dunwoody's lantern season is a good example of both. If you're weighing a move to Dunwoody or wondering what your home there could be worth, Neil Hediger Real Estate is glad to talk it through. Discover your home's curated potential. Let's talk.
